What I Really Think about Libertarianism

 

My libertarian friends may be surprised to hear this, but my respect for libertarianism has grown quite a lot since my introduction to Ricochet two years ago. Admittedly, my estimation at the time was pretty low. I had lots of libertarian undergraduates, and I also encountered a handful of professors and grad students with broadly libertarian views, so I was well familiar with that “I’m-conservative-but-not-a-moral-nag” snobbery. That bothered me only a little bit. My real reasons for dismissing libertarians were twofold.

First, libertarianism struck me as reactionary in broad sense. It presents itself as a universally applicable theory about the relationship between the individual to the state, but on that score, I found Ayn Rand far less insightful than Thomas Aquinas, Plato or Aristotle. Her influence, I saw, related to more idiosyncratic conditions of her time: the rise of the administrative state. That was, I supposed, a real problem in our time, but in historical terms it was still contingent; not every society has these same problems. As a political theory, then, it seemed to me that libertarianism drew unjustifiably broad principles on the basis of historically distinctive challenges.

Second, libertarianism seemed morally lazy to me. You can see this especially clearly when you watch undergraduates learning ethics. We spend a lot of time working through the ins and outs of an Aristotelian-type virtue ethics. That means we’re discussing lots of detailed questions about what the good life involves and what it takes for human beings to be excellent. Some of the students get into it. Others become irritated by all the nitty-gritty details and also by the general sense that a virtue-based ethics reaches into every nook and cranny of their lives. It has things to say about their dietary and sexual habits, what they read, what they watch on television, and what they do with their friends. Of course we’re only talking about ethics here and not politics; nobody’s suggesting that we hire virtue police to ensure that everyone behaves well. But even on that score, some people yearn to escape from all the complication, and to find some area of life where the only ethical mandate is, “do whatever you want just as long as you’re not bothering anybody.”

Then we get to modern moral philosophy, and you can watch the relief spreading over their faces. We knew it didn’t have to be that complicated! Being good can’t possibly require us to wrangle with all those messy details! This is the appeal of utilitarianism, for example. If you want to know what to do, just add up the relevant pleasures and pains associated with the various alternatives, and see what makes people happier. There’s no need for all this complicated stuff about virtues and human nature and detailed analyses of the common good. And on an individual level, the fact that an activity makes you happy is a good enough reason to do it, provided of course that it doesn’t make someone else sad.

Libertarianism is not explicitly an ethical theory, but for many it has a similar sort of appeal. It dispenses with troubling moral and political questions by pushing them all under the convenient heading of “not the state’s business.” Undergraduates love this. It gives them that air-clearing feeling that they’re craving after wandering through the intricacies of Aristotelian moral theory. It feels to them like that scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and friends come out of the woods and look out over shining fields of poppies. Free at last!

Like the poppies, though, this shining simplicity is deceptive. One way to realize this is by reflecting on the complexity of the concept of “freedom”. From what do we need to be free? For what do we want to be free? When humans live together in society, one person’s exercise of freedom can obviously impinge on another’s in a wide variety of ways. My neighbor blasts his music at top volume, and I can’t sleep. Another family up the street starts feeding the squirrels and before I know it my porch pumpkins have fallen victim to the little monsters as well. Advertisers want to put up pornographic billboards, but then I’ll have to drive by them every time I grocery shop. My state legalizes pot, and now I don’t like going to the local park because I don’t want my kids running through clouds of sweet-smelling smoke.

Now, I said that my respect for libertarians has increased. That’s true. Some of them have arguments far more sophisticated I had encountered before, and some are extremely interested in promoting the good through private means. They persuaded me to take the problem of administrative bloat far more seriously. Their relentless focus on size-of-state questions has led them to some very astute insights on the nature of the technocratic state, and they make excellent watchdogs (or gadflies?) against the constant temptation to take advantage of administrative bloat. But in the end, I think my two original criticisms still stand. They’re enormously clever about suggesting ways for us to accomplish communal projects without the help of the state. That can be quite useful in its way. But they’re still elevating a theory of government beyond its contextual importance. And they still provide a large haven for the morally lazy at precisely the time when we need to be morally energetic.

Advances in science and technology have massively increased the state’s power to rule us in every minute detail of our lives. It’s also increased our ability to hector and impede one another. Advances in technology allow us to spy on one another every minute, to redistribute wealth on a massive scale without sending a tax collector door to door, and to manipulate life (plant, animal, human) on a very fundamental level. We’re wrestling now with new and sometimes terrifying questions about justice and obligation and what kind of society we want to build. Libertarianism seems like something of a haven in this storm, because its prescriptions seem so fundamental and principled, and because it doesn’t demand consensus on most of these challenging questions. It seems like a good out.

But ultimately, that’s just a dodge. Small-state principles can’t save us from working through these issues. Suppose we could achieve political victory on a “morality-free” limited-government platform, legalizing drugs and prostitution and abandoning any efforts to recognize traditional marriage or protect the unborn. None of that would deconstruct the technocratic state. Meanwhile, social breakdown would continue apace, and eventually (probably rather soon) people would cry out for government to step up its efforts to save them from themselves. We’d end up with more statism than ever. But actually, I’m not even very worried about that, because I don’t think such a platform has any chance of winning the country back in any case. If we want to win America back, we have to show real insight into the problems they’re actually facing right now. Americans think that the GOP has failed to understand or “care about” them, and to some extent they’re right. We haven’t given them any good answers to the deep social and spiritual problems that have arisen in our modernist, technocratic, democratic state.

We need to return to core principles, but not Ayn Rand’s. She doesn’t have the insights we need at this juncture. Plato and Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas all reflected on a much more sophisticated level on the relationship between humans and their neighbors and their communities and the state. That is the level of complex, careful analysis that we need to diagnose and respond to these intense challenges. And insofar as I’m hard on libertarians, it’s not because I think they have nothing useful to contribute to this effort. They do have things to contribute. But often I see conservatism’s relentless focus on small-state advocacy as something of an obstacle to the kind of conversations we really need to be having right now. That’s not because I doubt that we need to shrink the state. It’s because I don’t think we can do it without answering the bigger questions about human excellence and human community, family, life, and the complex relationship between political freedom and virtue. And regrettably, libertarians frequently use their small-state principles as a kind of excuse to avoid those conversations.

Mike H asked yesterday: what do social conservatives want? I would answer: human excellence, happiness, virtue and a thriving society. Those are my highest goals. And while I do have some interest in the thriving of the state, that’s only about the eighth or ninth question on my list of concerns. 

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  1. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    Mike H:

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: Obviously, Christian libertarians more or less share your belief in an objective morality, but so do some non-Christian libertarians, like Mike H (and, I think, Sal).

    Sal identifies as Christian, I can’t remember which denomination, but he mentioned it during the Night Cap. I don’t know how practicing he is. Heck, I still quasi-identify as Catholic, my daughters been baptized, and I have few real objections to any of the church’s teachings. I just seriously doubt there’s a God.

    OK. I recall Sal as having identified himself once in a comment as agnostic or atheist something like that, but I certainly could be mistaken in my recollection – it wouldn’t be the first time. If my memory were better, I’d’ve become a doctor or lawyer :-)

     It wouldn’t surprise me. I was surprised his claimed a denomination, but he might have mentioned it for tradition purposes rather than faith.

    • #241
  2. Owen Findy Inactive
    Owen Findy
    @OwenFindy

     

    KC Mulville: Moral virtues are objectively true, not created by process.

    I, heavily influenced by Rand’s claimed demonstration of this, agree.

    (Haven’t gotten the hang of multiple, separate quote blocks, so I have to use multiple comments.)

    • #242
  3. Owen Findy Inactive
    Owen Findy
    @OwenFindy

    KC Mulville: Moral virtues are objectively true, not created by process. That puts traditional/classic theories of morality at odds with libertarianism, which if you follow its logic, must hold that morality can’t be objective.

    I, therefore, disagree.

    • #243
  4. user_385039 Inactive
    user_385039
    @donaldtodd

    KC Mulville: #225 “I’m basically comfortable with the relationship between libertarians and SoCons. We have common cause to push a common “conservative” theme of limited government, and no question we’d all vote for the same political agenda as far as that goes.”

    We are operating in different spheres at this point.  I don’t believe that social conservative ideas are necessarily popular with libertarians.   When I called the local TEA Party I asked about abortion.  It is entirely up to the individual, the (local) TEA Party has no position on it.

    The libertarians here also seem to have pretty much rolled over on SSM.  

    Fiscal conservative ideas, somewhere between perhaps to probably.  

    Defense of America ideas, Cole among others would like to bring all the troops home as if the Pax Americana isn’t real, so probably no overwhelming agreement there either.  Since Barry is giving them a lot of their wishes right now, they can look at the world without America’s contribution and see which way things are going.

    Can we agree:  Maybe, but maybe not.

    • #244
  5. Gödel's Ghost Inactive
    Gödel's Ghost
    @GreatGhostofGodel

    Rachel Lu:

    The Wilson administration? Wilson was the worst kind of liberal progressive. He surely didn’t understand virtue in the least. 

    Forgive me, but that was exactly my point, and your last claim suffers from blatant selection bias: of course you don’t think Wilson understood virtue. But he equally obviously thought he did. It’s this radically blinkered understanding of competing views of virtue that libertarianism so forcefully rejects.

    • #245
  6. Owen Findy Inactive
    Owen Findy
    @OwenFindy

    KC Mulville: A SoCon like me would argue for an objectively true morality, principally taught by an authority like the church, as the means to promote virtue.  Can I count on libertarians to support that?

    This libertarian atheist believes in virtue, and considers it important.  I think it’s probably possible to derive moral precepts objectively, though they would naturally be based on nature and reason, not supernature.  I certainly believe they ought to be (fervently) taught and advocated.  I have even come to believe that some religions point people in what I consider the right direction sometimes, and increase the chances of virtuous behavior, even though, being an atheist, I can’t consider them objectively based.  Though not standing in their way, I won’t, yet, overtly support Christian or Jewish institutions, but I can imagine that I might come to that point sometime.

    • #246
  7. user_385039 Inactive
    user_385039
    @donaldtodd

    Larry3435: #236 “Let me state, for the record, that my own morality is entirely subjective.
    …..
     I do my utmost to be true to morality as I understand it (sometimes failing, of course). But I do not claim that it is “objective” in any sense that I can understand. Would someone please explain?”

    The moral law is expressed in many cultures in many lands which have little to no contact with one another over the various eras on this planet.  They often (but not always) note how one should be related to the deity (however that is understood), to one’s parents, one’s spouse, one’s children, one’s neighbors, and occasionally further than one’s neighbors.

    It describes wrong things, such as blasphemy, murder, adultery, theft, and on.  

    Different cultures might permit one wife or four, but they all supposed that if you have wives you must care for them; and you are not permitted to pick up any woman on the street for your temporary pleasure.  

    CS Lewis, in The Abolition of Man described the moral law as the tao or way.  It is consistent wherever it is promulgated;  and it is consistently broken.

    • #247
  8. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Mike H:

    ..Heck, I still quasi-identify as Catholic, my daughters been baptized, and I have few real objections to any of the church’s teachings. I just seriously doubt there’s a God.

    Oh, sometimes I seriously doubt it, too, just not seriously enough or often enough to make “I’m not a Christian” an honest statement. The best Easter sermon I’ve ever heard was John Chrysostom’s Easter Homily, but the second-best one was a pastor of exemplary holiness confessing to moments of deep doubt, and reflecting on what that meant.

    It makes sense that a lot of people partly identify as Christian, but not wholly. I find the “you’re either saved or not” model of Christianity leaves something to be desired.

    • #248
  9. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    BastiatJunior:

    You’re right, but I only had 200 words to work with. (How’s that for a lame excuse? :-)) What do you think of the comment’s larger point?

    Not a lame excuse, a realistic one.

    There were several points in your comment, most of them exceptionally good. I’m just leery of conservatives especially equating virtue with the denial of pleasure. We already shoot ourselves in the foot enough by sounding like the anti-pleasure party, instead of the party that wants people to experience the many sorts of long-term, deeply satisfying pleasure that personal responsibility can make possible.

    • #249
  10. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    BastiatJunior:

    You’re right, but I only had 200 words to work with. (How’s that for a lame excuse? :-)) What do you think of the comment’s larger point?

    Not a lame excuse, a realistic one.

    There were several points in your comment, most of them exceptionally good. I’m just leery of conservatives especially equating virtue with the denial of pleasure. We already shoot ourselves in the foot enough by sounding like the anti-pleasure party, instead of the party that wants people to experience the many sorts of long-term, deeply satisfying pleasure that personal responsibility can make possible.

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: I’m just leery of conservatives especially equating virtue with the denial of pleasure. We already shoot ourselves in the foot enough by sounding like the anti-pleasure party, instead of the party that wants people to experience the many sorts of long-term, deeply satisfying pleasure that personal responsibility can make possible.

     Good point.

    • #250
  11. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Donald Todd:

    The moral law is expressed in many cultures in many lands which have little to no contact with one another over the various eras on this planet. …

    CS Lewis, in described the moral law as the tao or way. It is consistent wherever it is promulgated; and it is consistently broken.

     So what makes the objective law “objective” is that it is consistent over time and across cultures?  Does that mean that things that I consider to be immoral, but which have a long tradition in many cultures throughout history, are not objectively immoral?  Things like torture, slavery, polygamy, child marriage, the death penalty, wars of conquest, treating women as property, human sacrifice, etc.?

    I would also ask, what is added by calling this morality “objective”?  Would it be any less immoral to steal if we merely called it “universal” morality, rather than “objective” morality?

    • #251
  12. user_86050 Inactive
    user_86050
    @KCMulville

    Larry3435:

     Tell me KC, when you say “an objectively true morality,” do you mean to say that if someone disagrees with you about a moral issue, it isn’t just a difference of opinion, but rather you are objectively right and the other guy is objectively wrong?

    Sorry for the delay … I spent the day in a car showroom. Talk about markets v. objective morality …

    No, the idea of objective morality is not a personal cudgel. Objective means precisely the opposite. It means that its truth doesn’t depend on any person.

    • #252
  13. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Mike H:

    Here’s a paper on Moral Objectivism by Michael Huemer, a libertarian, and my favorite philosopher. His position is that objective moral truths are discovered over time like other facts of science, and those discoveries are real things, like the laws of physics. 

     Thanks.  Here’s where I think we differ.  Scientific “laws” are only laws in the sense that they are predictive.  They predict how physical matter and energy (which are the same thing) will behave.  To ascribe this attribute to morality, we would have to know what qualities morality is attempting to predict, would we not?  

    What Huemer describes as the distinction between objective and subjective is what I would call the distinction between normative and descriptive.  According to Huemer, any normative assertion about morality is “objective,” no matter how ridiculous it may seem.  If that is all that “objective” means, then obviously I agree that morality is objective.

    I note, by the way, that Huemer also mentions that beauty is objective.  (“I shall call ‘morality’ (in the objective sense) all facts, if there are any such facts, about what is wrong, good, bad, evil, ill-advised, just, beautiful, or preferable”)  Do you agree?

    • #253
  14. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    KC Mulville:

    Sorry for the delay … I spent the day in a car showroom. Talk about markets v. objective morality …

    No, the idea of objective morality is not a personal cudgel. Objective means precisely the opposite. It means that its truth doesn’t depend on any person.

     Thanks.  Ok, so it “exists” in some sense.  Independent of anyone knowing it.  In what sense does it exist?  I assume it does not have physical existence.  And you have ruled out it having conceptual existence.  Does it have some kind of epistomologically transcendent existence?  Like God?  Real, but not in any sense that humans can comprehend?

    If so, what difference does it make that it is “objective”?  If it is transcendent, then its true nature is unknowable.  Like the true name of God, we can neither know it nor agree on it.  So isn’t it subjective in the only sense that matters – i.e., we must choose what to believe about it?

    By the way, what kind of car are you looking at?

    • #254
  15. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Larry3435: Thanks.  Here’s where I think we differ.  Scientific “laws” are only laws in the sense that they are predictive.  They predict how physical matter and energy (which are the same thing) will behave.  To ascribe this attribute to morality, we would have to know what qaulities morality is attempting to predict, would we not?  

     Ahh… perhaps I should use a different analogy. Our observations of objective morality are as real as our observations of physical objects, they’re just not as obvious.

    Larry3435: According to Huemer, any normative assertion about morality is “objective,” no matter how ridiculous it may seem.  If that is all that “objective” means, then obviously I agree that morality is objective.

    They are all objective observations, but most of them are wrong. Over time, we come to agree on true morality.

    Larry3435: I note, by the way, that Huemer also mentions that beauty is objective.  (“I shall call ‘morality’ (in the objective sense) all facts, if there are any such facts, about what is wrong, good, bad, evil, ill-advised, just, beautiful, or preferable”)  Do you agree?

    I believe the bolded portion is important.

    • #255
  16. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Mike H:

    Ahh… perhaps I should use a different analogy. Our observations of objective morality are as real as our observations of physical objects, they’re just not as obvious.

    They are all objective observations, but most of them are wrong. Over time, we come to agree on true morality.

     Re 1st paragraph:  I observe physical objects with my senses.  I can see them, hear them, etc.  I can also measure them with instruments, capable of interacting with them.  How do I “observe” morality?  I can think about it, sure, but how do I “observe” it?

    Re 2nd paragraph:  We often don’t come to agree on them.  If we did, there wouldn’t be much point in discussing it, since everyone would agree.  (There wouldn’t be much reason for libertarians, either, if everyone agreed.)  But my question is, what is the process by which we come to agree over time?  What is it that we are learning over time, and how are we learning it?

    • #256
  17. user_86050 Inactive
    user_86050
    @KCMulville

    Larry3435:

    By the way, what kind of car are you looking at?

    2014 Corolla.

    We have to be careful in using the word objective, because it lends the imagination to picture a physical thing.  And therefore (with notable exceptions) when we’re getting technical, we don’t say they exist. They’re true or false. (Pause – whole range of possibilities here.)

    I hesitate to get more defined here, because that’s what they pay philosophy professors to spend years discussing – and I ain’t getting paid for this. 

    However, the key here is that whatever the metaphysics, the relevant point is that if the values are true, they aren’t true because the human beings say so. That would imply that human beings make the morality. If it was purely human beings who made morality, they could conceivably make any morality they want, meaning they could place no restraints on their own behavior. At which point, morality ceases to be imperative.

    • #257
  18. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    KC Mulville:

    However, the key here is that whatever the metaphysics, the relevant point is that if the values are true, they aren’t true because the human beings say so. That would imply that human beings make the morality. If it was purely human beings who made morality, they could conceivably make any morality they want, meaning they could place no restraints on their own behavior. At which point, morality ceases to be imperative.

     Well put.  I think that is the crux of the “objective morality” argument.  And here’s why I think it is wrong:  Consistency.  Morality consists of rules, not just acts.  To be consistent, your morality must account for the way other people should treat you – in the same way, and to the same extent that it accounts for how you should treat other people.  The most fundamental moral rule – the Golden Rule.

    So you are not free to say that morality is whatever you want it to be.  If you don’t want to be killed, or have your stuff stolen, then you must acknowledge that there is something wrong with such behavior.  Only a sociopath can diverge from this reasoning.  

    • #258
  19. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Larry3435:

    How do I “observe” morality? I can think about it, sure, but how do I “observe” it?

    You observe morality through your own intuition, and then verify it through others. The same way you might ask if someone else sees that glass on the table. If they don’t see the glass, it might not be real. If they do see the glass you can continue to believe your prima facie assumption.

    Re 2nd paragraph: We often don’t come to agree on them. If we did, there wouldn’t be much point in discussing it, since everyone would agree. (There wouldn’t be much reason for libertarians, either, if everyone agreed.) But my question is, what is the process by which we come to agree over time? What is it that we are learning over time, and how are we learning it?

    Exactly. The things we tend to agree on practically universally, when applied, lead to libertarian conclusions. Don’t kill, don’t steal, property rights are real, ect. We learn through trial, error, and continuous interaction. We make progress similar to how you view utilitarianism, except the conclusions we reach are getting closer to the real Truth.

    • #259
  20. user_86050 Inactive
    user_86050
    @KCMulville

    Larry3435:

    Well put. I think that is the crux of the “objective morality” argument. And here’s why I think it is wrong. 
    […]
    So you are not free to say that morality is whatever you want it to be. 

    I didn’t follow you here, because in the first sentence you say that there is no objective morality, and yet in the second sentence, you presume that morality is exactly what the definition calls for.

    Forgive me. I may be distracted from reading clearly, what with all my tears from reading my new auto finance bill. (I’m only half-joking …)

    • #260
  21. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    KC Mulville:

    Larry3435:

    I didn’t follow you here, because in the first sentence you say that there is no objective morality, and yet in the second sentence, you presume that morality is exactly what the definition calls for.

    Forgive me. I may be distracted from reading clearly, what with all my tears from reading my new auto finance bill. (I’m only half-joking …)

    Well, the Corolla is a nice car, so grin and bear the bill.  At least interest rates are pretty low.

    Here’s what I’m saying:  I don’t accept that morality is objective, in any sense of the word that I have been able to understand.  But that does not make it completely arbitrary either.  Those are not the only two choices.  I believe morality arises from shared values.  It is a way to achieve those shared values.  Most obvious and universal among humanity’s shared values is the desire to be happy.  Which makes me a utilitarian.  Moral behavior is that which makes us happy, collectively.  But I don’t believe that morality has an existence independent from human beings and their values.

    • #261
  22. user_86050 Inactive
    user_86050
    @KCMulville

    I know, but I was coming off a period in which I didn’t have any car bill. I had paid off my last car, and it had been running fine, letting me drive for free (so to speak) for a couple years. Ah well. 

    As for morality, we have to make the distinction between a philosophy-based moral theory and one that comes from religion. As a Christian, my moral beliefs are shaped by my church (I’m a pape) and in turn my church’s moral perspective is shaped by salvation history, the actual teachings of Jesus, and the developed theology guided by the Holy Spirit since Jesus’ time. If nothing else, none of it was my idea. I happen to believe that those moral values are from God, mediated (with perhaps some difficulty) through the church. Their truth has nothing to do with me. They don’t even invite me to the meetings!

    And I’m not sure that in dealing with the rest of civil society, I’m required to justify my support for those values through utterly secular theory. Most of the people I’m conversing with are Judeo-Christians anyway.

    • #262
  23. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    KC Mulville:

    As for morality, we have to make the distinction between a philosophy-based moral theory and one that comes from religion. As a Christian, my moral beliefs are shaped by my church (I’m a pape) and in turn my church’s moral perspective is shaped by salvation history, the actual teachings of Jesus, and the developed theology guided by the Holy Spirit since Jesus’ time. If nothing else, none of it was my idea. I happen to believe that those moral values are from God, mediated (with perhaps some difficulty) through the church. 

     That is a very good point.  God’s Law is objectively real to the same extent that God is objectively real.  As an agnostic, I am open to the possibility that God is objectively real, so there may be an objective morality.  

    However, as an agnostic I also disclaim knowledge of the true nature or will of God.  Therefore, that objective morality is of no use to me.  I have to seek my answers elsewhere.  As do you, I assume, when moral questions arise as to which your church does not take a position.

    • #263
  24. Tom Meyer Member
    Tom Meyer
    @tommeyer

    Mike H: Here’s a paper on Moral Objectivism by Michael Huemer, a libertarian, and my favorite philosopher. His position is that objective moral truths are discovered over time like other facts of science, and those discoveries are real things, like the laws of physics. Here are links to his books, which I haven’t read yet, but I plan to:

    One possible way to look at this is that there are three competing conjectures:

    1. That morality is revealed;
    2. That morality is discovered; and
    3. That morality is created.

    The latter may start in a similar position (e.g., they favor some degree of experimentation and  tend to be skeptical of traditional religious claims) but they diverge quickly  in practice.  For all the former two start in different places, they arrive at similar conclusions.

    • #264
  25. Tom Meyer Member
    Tom Meyer
    @tommeyer

    For the sake of clarity, those are generalizations.

    • #265
  26. user_86050 Inactive
    user_86050
    @KCMulville

    I’m not the least bit surprised, by the way, that a discussion on how libertarians handle the concept of moral values should eventually get around (after 250 comments or so) to focusing on the basis of moral values themselves … rather than swapping political suspicions between SoCons and libertarians. 

    Maybe Socrates was on to something …

    • #266
  27. Owen Findy Inactive
    Owen Findy
    @OwenFindy

    Tom Meyer, Ed.: One possible way to look at this is that there are three competing conjectures: That morality is revealed; That morality is discovered; and That morality is created.

    You, sir, are a clarifier.  Your distillations have been invaluable in these discussions.

    • #267
  28. Tuck Inactive
    Tuck
    @Tuck

    Skyler: I’m a bit appalled that the author appears to be a professor of philosophy…

     Medieval philosophy.  She may be a bit out of date. ;)

    • #268
  29. Tuck Inactive
    Tuck
    @Tuck

    Mike H: I can’t help but notice I’m suspiciously absent from the lists of “reasonable libertarians.”

     LOL.  Don’t take it personally.  The person making that list has, apparently, no qualifications for making that determination.

    • #269
  30. Tuck Inactive
    Tuck
    @Tuck

    Merina Smith: Abstract principles such as “smaller government” don’t win elections, even though people generally agree with the idea.

    Rachel Lu: But, present evidence is, most people aren’t too worried about those things.

     You must be using the Aristotelian definition of “most”…

    Majorities in U.S. View Gov’t as Too Intrusive and Powerful: Independents largely side with Republicans in denouncing big government

    In U.S., 65% Dissatisfied With How Gov’t System Works: Republicans and independents most likely to be dissatisfied

    Record High in U.S. Say Big Government Greatest Threat: Now 72% say it is greater threat than big business or big labor

    You’ll notice those are massive majorities.  Reagan managed to campaign on a small-government platform and won big.  Merina saying it can’t be done is very counter-factual.

    The biggest problem is that Americans’ don’t believe the Republican party is the party of small government.  The Bushes killed that idea.

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